


Dreams Feel Real

by magnetgirl



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Spies & Secret Agents, they are the hunters we are the foxes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 12:16:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3569339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/pseuds/magnetgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>#buckynat week prompt: Something had to be done about his arm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams Feel Real

_We have to do something about his arm._

It was his first memory. Well. His first memory he could remember.

A small silver room, full of light. Glowing…but it was cold. Not harsh, not mean, just…antiseptic. Clinical but not the way a hospital is. Not even the way a lab is. It was like…

A prison.

He doesn’t remember falling. He doesn’t remember the snow. He remembers a small silver room full of cold light and a voice talking to someone else — about him, but never to him —  _We have to do something about his arm._

Bucky sits up  before he opens his eyes. His heart is racing, the sheet wrapped tight around his legs is drenched with sweat, breath is caught in his chest.

“James?”

His eyes blink open. Natasha is beside him in the bed, the sheet draped across her lap, her utilitarian nightshirt blends in with the wall. Her posture is relaxed but her eyes are alert. She’s half his size and barely dressed but she could kill him in five minutes. If it was necessary.

James takes a deep breath and forces his heart to slow before meeting her eyes. “Sorry.” His voice is quiet, but it echoes in the sparsely furnished room. She tilts her head, very slightly, a question. “Just a dream.”

“Bad?”

_Always._  His lips twitch as the word flashes in his mind, but he stays silent. Natasha touches his shoulder, the place where flesh meets metal. Somehow she always knows.

She wasn’t his first memory of SHIELD. But she was the first one he cared to remember.

The room was small, and empty but for a table and two chairs. She took the one across from him. “Hello Sergeant Barnes. Do you know who I am?”

“Natalia Alianova Romanova.” He answered quickly, simply. He’d already been through an interrogation, though SHIELD called it a debriefing. “The Black Widow Program’s greatest failure.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Failure?” The ghost of a smile played on her lips.

“You are an Avenger.”

The smile widened. “Would you like to be an Avenger?” That caught him off-guard, and the SHIELD agents watching, too. Their conversation was declared over before it began, but it was the first of many.

Her fingers are warm on his shoulder. “Do you ever dream?” She nods, once, simply. “What’s your first memory?”

She’s quiet a moment. “Dancing.” She brushes her fingers across one of his scars, then leans up to press her lips to it. “It’s not real.”

His eyes travel across her body, drinking in her bare arms, legs tucked under the sheet, soft hair falling across her eyes. Her gaze is a mixture of vulnerability and steel, both for his benefit, he knows.

“My first real memory…” He pulls her closer. “Is of you.” His breath tickles her lips and she laughs. He raises an eyebrow and she laughs harder. It’s infectious, their laughter fills the room.

“Go to sleep,” she demands, still laughing, and knocks him back on the mattress. He grabs her waist and pulls her down with him. He tucks her body against his, metal arm tight across her shoulders. The room is small, empty, dark.

And warm.

Like a home.


End file.
